The Ray Pletcher Blog

Is the future bound to be one of despair and the failings of the human race? Well not according to Star Trek The Next Generation which promotes a message that in the future humanity prospers and evolves past their “animalistic” natures such as found in the 21st century among humans. The first season of this show propels its audience into the world that this show creates with its premise setting it decades after the events of the original Star Trek TV show. The show takes place in the 24th century and follows the events of the universe-trotting mission of exploration led by Captain Jean-Luc Picard played by Patrick Stewart. The first season like the others is laid out episodically but it does do care to characterization arcs to allow the characters of the crew to be much more than one note characters who don’t develop. Star Trek The Next Generation’s first season succeeds in introducing the audience to a diverse group of characters and familiarizing it with the mythology and ideals...

A father decides he needs to spend more time with his family which just so happens to be a house full of women and he has to juggle his priorities with all the family drama that ensues. This sounds like a typical run of the mill sitcom, doesn’t it? Think again because the sitcom Last Man Standing headlined by Tim Allen provides some genuine entertainment and in it's first season it delivers a solid foundation for the show. Tim Allen plays Mike Baxter head of marketing of an outdoor sports retail line called Outdoor Man who has decided to reign back his traveling trips to spend more quality time with his wife and daughters one of which is a high school dropout with a son. The first season introduces us to other quirky characters in Mike's life such as Christoph Sanders as the goofy Kyle who dates his daughter with a son Kristen and Ed played by Ector Helizondo, Mike's boss who may be old but is very young in spirit. His wife Vanessa is a headstrong lady played by Nancy Tr...

What would happen if ghosts from your past came back to life? This happens literally in the live action sequel to the 2002 film Scooby-Doo, in 2004’s Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed again directed by Raja Gosnell. The film isn’t an improvement on the original but it does manage to ground the story more than the first even with its still ever ridiculous plot. The cast does seem to have a stronger sense of chemistry than the first one but that doesn’t help the final product in the end. Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed tells the story of the gang being back in their stomping grounds, Coolsville as they are as tight-knit as ever and are being celebrated with their own museum when a masked villain shows up and steals several monster costumes from the gang’s past. The villain sets out to recreate the monsters and wreak havoc on the gang. The movie like its predecessor has fun moments but it doesn’t add up to a good movie. Shaggy and Scooby continue to be stand out characters and...

Scooby-Doo where are you? That's the classic line from the cartoon TV series that so many generations have grown up on of the iconic cartoon character Scooby-Doo from which the live action 2002 movie Scooby-Doo is based on. Raja Gosnell directs this story from a screenplay by James Gunn which surprisingly brings to life the nostalgia of Scooby-Doo but fails to do much else. Scooby-Doo follows the Mystery Inc. gang as they split up and go their separate ways only to find themselves solving another mystery together two years later when they all receive invitations to Spooky Island. The Mystery Inc. gang is tasked with figuring out why the visitors of its amusement park show up as punk party kids but leave the island all zombified and “civilized” in behavior. The story runs throughout for the rest of the film indulging in ridiculous plot points to give the characters an excuse to go on a wild adventure. Scooby and Shaggy are the standouts in the cast with Matthew Lilla...

Wish you had super-intelligence and telekinesis? Well, John Travolta does in the 1996 movie Phenomenon and it doesn’t nearly do justice to the mind-bending riveting adventure you could have had in this simply subpar film directed by Jon Turteltaub. The premise of the film is John Travolta as George Malley, a popular mechanic, who on his birthday sees a bright light in the sky and gains super-intelligence and telekinesis. After that, his life changes as his friends view him differently and the way he views life becomes different as he sees more value in it and has a greater thirst to learn than he ever did before. Perhaps the movie tries too hard to be intellectual when it really doesn’t even know what it is in the first place, to begin with. In any regard, the picture does have entertaining aspects to be enjoyed throughout the film regardless of its mountain of flaws in the script. John Travolta effectively brings to life the character of a popular mechanic in a small tow...

A lot of characters in TV find themselves faced with impossible situations but MacGyver certainly outshines them all with his smarts and quick wit. Richard Dean Anderson headlined the TV show MacGyver which ran for seven seasons from 1985-1992 and it had a very popular run. The first season of MacGyver certainly succeeds in delivering on what made MacGyver an exciting show to watch: action. The first season of the show defined the character of MacGyver and introduced audiences to how the character thought and how he deferred from many traditional TV characters in that he often got himself out of sticky situations by using his brains rather than his fists. MacGyver proved itself to be a piece of entertainment whose plot was not to be easily predicted.     The performances from the season are top notch when measured up to fit its tone which is bright and optimistic. Richard Dean Anderson does a good job of portraying a character who takes on assignments w...

What would the end of the world look like? Well according to Michael Bay’s motion picture Armageddon (1998), the end of the world wouldn’t just be a depressing swan song for everybody to partake in but an occasion, a momentous event for people of great character to rise up and face the worst of times with everything that makes the human spirit great including humor and love but also showcasing the worst of humanity in fear, and death. In the late nineties Michael Bay put out one of his best efforts onscreen Armageddon which magically combines the best elements of a human drama with those a big screen blockbuster. In this adventure the world is facing its impending doom as a series of asteroids have started coming down and crashing into the Earth. Now NASA has learned that another asteroid is coming to plummet into the majestic ocean rich Earth and one the size of Texas which would mean the end of humankind as everyone knows it. So what does NASA do? They go to the best deep s...

Will the fate of our world be that of doom if we continue down our current path? That's what Lost in Space depicts as it uses this plot device to jumpstart the picture. From the point of view of the history of the cinema nearly two decades after the release of this movie, this movie delivers a sci-fi adventure with Commissioner Gordon, Joey Tribbiani, and General Ross at its center headlining it. This film takes place in 2058 when the world is suffering from pollution and mankind’s only hope is to send the Robinson family up into space to the habitable planet Alpha Prime to prepare it for colonization. There's one problem though and that's a terrorist organization intent on sabotaging the mission and getting to Alpha Prime first. William Hurt portrays John Robinson, the head of this mission, Matt Leblanc portrays Major West who must pilot the mission, and Gary Oldman as Dr. Smith, the “saboteur”. This film has many qualities which stand out upon viewing. At...